Tuesday

Apr 21, 2020 at 12:54 PM

Coronavirus Palm Beach County updates: New case rate slows for 4th day in a row but deaths still growing.

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Jumpstarting Florida’s coronavirus-sickened economy may involve giving it a push down the road instead of replacing the battery with the hope it will roar back to life, members of a committee mapping out a plan for the hoped-for comeback said Tuesday.

While Gov. Ron DeSantis gave members of his newly-formed Re-Open Florida Task Force until Friday to make recommendations about how to put Florida back to work, some committee members urged caution.

"I think the key to these things is not to hit the gas pedal and try to go 100 mph out of the gate but to gradually ramp up," said incoming Florida Senate President Wilton Simpson, R-Lakeland, who is on the executive committee of the multi-pronged task force.

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A phased-in approach to bring back hotels, restaurants and other parts of the state’s hard-hit tourism industry will ensure employees are properly trained and supplies are in place so customers are confident that it’s safe to leave their homes, he said.

If businesses are allowed to reopen and a threatened second wave of the deadly virus hits the state, forcing another round of closures, the effects would be disastrous, Simpson said.

"If you ramp up slowly and bring up the confidence level with it, I think you’ll have a lot more success," Simpson said after hearing a briefing about precautions restaurateurs, hoteliers and others in the hospitality industry are planning to take after DeSantis gives the all-clear.

Despite the Friday deadline and the looming April 30 expiration of President Donald Trumps’ "30 Days to Slow the Spread," DeSantis said he has not decided when he will start lifting restrictions that have paralyzed Floridians’ lives and thrown thousands out of work.

"I haven’t set a specific date because I think it’s more important to do it right than to have an artificial deadline," he said during an afternoon press conference.

But, he was clearly pleased that dire predictions that Florida would be overwhelmed by the deadly virus haven’t come true.

"We did not go the way of Italy. We did not go the way of New York," he said, blasting the media for reporting grim projections by respected researchers at the University of Washington. "In fact, we’ve done much better than either of those places."

The meetings of the tourism working group and the executive committee came as the Florida Department of Health released numbers showing that the number of new confirmed coronavirus cases slowed for the fourth straight day even though the number of deaths continued to grow.

Working groups that will address other sectors of the economy will begin meeting on Wednesday.

7.2 percent jump in county deaths

As of Tuesday evening, 27,869 people statewide had been diagnosed with the deadly coronavirus, a 3 percent increase since Monday night, according to state health officials. In Palm Beach County, 2,320 people have tested positive, a growth of a slim 2.7 percent in 24 hours.

However, nine more county residents, between the ages of 62 and 93, were reported dead, bringing the county’s death toll to 134. That is a 7.2 percent increase, the largest single-day jump since April 15.

An additional 44 people were reported dead statewide, bringing the total number of fatalities in Florida to 884. Since last week, the number of deaths statewide have increased more than 50 percent.

And the state doesn’t report the number of non-Florida residents, such as snowbirds, who died in the state. That means the number of deaths is under-reported on the state website that tracks COVID-19 cases.

Since Saturday, the number of new cases statewide rose by less than 4 percent a day, raising hopes that the state has "flattened the curve" of the highly contagious disease and some restrictions can be lifted.

However, Palm Beach County Health Director Dr. Alina Alonso has said that the number of new cases must drop for 14 days before it is considered safe to lift social distancing restrictions.

Further, the numbers have fluctuated. They dropped last week and then spiked on Friday.

During a morning brainstorming session, restaurant owners and hoteliers made it clear that life after the coronavirus is going to look quite different.

Mask- and glove-wearing servers, disposable paper menus and acrylic barriers will become the new normal when restaurants re-open, said members of the tourism subcommittee of the governor’s task force.

Further, in addition to buying food and napkins, restaurant owners are going to be investing in thermometers so they can test their employees’ temperatures before they begin work.

The key to the recovery is building public confidence, said the head of a Miami-based company that operates thousands of Burger King locations and other fast-food restaurants across the globe.

The industry should start offering paid sick leave to employees so they don’t feel compelled to come to work when they are sick, said Jose Cil, CEO of Restaurant Brands International.

In addition to helping workers, it will win over customers who are fearful that having a bite out could be deadly, said Cil, one of three dozen members of the tourism working group.

"We need to have certainty that restaurants are a safe place to go for the benefit of our team members as well as our guests," said Cil, adding that his company has instituted safeguards at its fast-food restaurants since drive-thrus were allowed to remain open.

Tourism suffering but there’s hope

The tourism industry that employs about 3.4 million of the state’s 10 million workers has been devastated, said Dana Young, president and CEO of Visit Florida, the state’s tourism marketing arm.

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Hotel revenue is down $1.6 billion compared with last year, she said. Domestic air travel is down 65 percent and international flights dropped by 80 percent.

However, she said, there is hope. In recent days, visits to the agency’s website have increased, indicating that people are at least thinking of making vacation plans.

As the number of cases ebb, she said her agency will begin reaching out to Floridians, urging them to explore the state. Later, as cases continue to drop, she said it would resume efforts to attract out-of-state and international visitors.

Hoteliers said they have beefed up their cleaning practices, dousing rooms and lobby areas with anti-bacterial spray, using special vacuum cleaners and putting bottles of hand sanitizer within easy reach of staff and guests.

The key, all agreed, is timing.

Working group member Philip Goldfarb, president and COO of the Fontainebleau Miami Beach, said DeSantis should open beaches when he allows hotels to re-open.

"I’m hearing through the grapevine that our beaches may not be opened when we’re opening our restaurants, resorts and cafes, etc. and that would be a mistake," he said. "They should open simultaneously so our guests have something to do while they’re here."

Later, at a meeting of the executive committee, Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said that if beaches are re-opened in South Florida, hotels should be willing to help patrol them to make sure people continue to engage in social distancing.

Likewise, while restaurateurs and hoteliers called for DeSantis to issue safety guidelines for them to follow, Gimenez asked who would enforce them.

After allowing restaurants to remain open if they cut the capacity of dining rooms in half, DeSantis shut down indoor eating because so many eateries refused to comply with the restriction.

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With nearly 60 percent of the confirmed cases and COVID-19 deaths in South Florida, DeSantis has repeatedly suggested that businesses in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties may not open as quickly as those elsewhere in the state.

Palm Beach County Mayor Dave Kerner, a member of the executive committee, alluded to that possibility. But, there was no discussion of a staggered opening of businesses in the state.

Shortly after the pandemic swept into Florida, Kerner joined forces with Gimenez and mayors in Broward and Monroe counties. The four counties put the same rules in place so residents wouldn’t jump from one to the next to avoid restrictions aimed at curbing the spread of the virus.

Palm Beach County Commissioner Hal Valeche last week bristled at the four-county union, saying Palm Beach County should make its own decisions.

During his press conference, DeSantis said lifting the ban on elective surgeries is a priority. While it was necessary when health officials predicted hundreds of thousands could be hospitalized with the virus, he said more than 40 percent of beds statewide are empty. Meanwhile, scores of hospital workers have been laid off because of dropping caseloads, which means declining revenue.

The Florida Medical Association on Tuesday wrote DeSantis, asking him to lift the restriction immediately to put nurses and others back to work and help people who need surgery.

DeSantis told members of the task force that many businesses could open soon because the workers have little contact with the public. Instead of closing businesses by declaring them essential or non-essential, he said it is important to gauge whether they pose a risk.

But, he said, even as the disease appears to ebb, he has no plans to close the state’s drive-thru testing centers, including two in Palm Beach County.

"There may be more testing in the next phase," DeSantis said.

Business owners will want to test their employees to determine if they are safe to return to work. And, he said, he wants to begin large-scale antibody testing.

While criticized by some scientists as unreliable, the tests would show how many people have contracted the virus, some without even knowing it. If the coronavirus behaves like its counterparts, those who have had it would be immune, health officials have said.

Antibody testing would also show how many people had the disease but experienced no symptoms. That would help public health officials devise ways to keep COVID-19 in check.

While the pace is slowing, none of the state’s 67 counties has been spared. South Florida continues to be the epicenter of the pandemic in the state.

With 16,285 confirmed cases and 486 deaths in Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties, the tri-county region accounts for 59 percent of those diagnosed and 56 percent of the deaths statewide.

However, as DeSantis pointed out, some counties have merely been brushed. In the Treasure Coast, there are 160 confirmed cases in Martin County, 206 in St. Lucie County and 85 in Indian River County. Twenty-four people have died in the three counties. In nearby Okeechobee County, eight have been diagnosed with COVID-19.

There are now roughly 820,000 confirmed cases in the United States and more than 44,000 have died. Globally, more than 2.5 million people have been diagnosed and more than 176,000 are dead.